Civic Watchdog– my hero!

Our neighborhood has been plagued by graffiti (that’s one of the downsides to moving into a gentrifying neighborhood).  Walls and alleys in the ‘hood are covered in people’s names and the names of tagging crews, and I hate the unsightliness of it.  This isn’t mural-style work, it’s ugly scrawling.  Since we bought the house in September, we’ve been lucky and haven’t had to deal with much of it on our property, but we can see it all around us.  In an attempt to become smarter about graffiti, I called the Graffiti Strike Force Detective and learned a little bit more about who tags in our neighborhood, what we could do to minimize tagging on our property, and what to do if we see someone doing it.  The detective was very patient and said that if we saw someone tagging, we should call 911 to report it as a crime in progress, and that with an eyewitness statement and the cops finding the person or people doing it, the City Attorney could prosecute.

Last night, I was driving home from work when Mike called to say that he’d been standing in our kitchen when he saw a couple of guys tagging on the wall across the street.  It was broad daylight, just before 5 pm, and there these guys were, writing in huge letters on this wall.  Crazy!  Remembering what I told him the detective had told me, Mike called 911 and within minutes, four cop cars rolled up and caught the thugs!  Mike’s keen eye and quick thinking, plus the speed of the responding officers, resulted in two taggers off the streets.

I talked to the detective this morning and he said that the guys are being held on a $35,000 bond (whatever that means).  Both guys are going to face felonies, because they have priors, and one of them apparently is an illegal alien and will be deported!  The detective was very happy that all the elements were coming together, and I am hopeful that this is the first step in letting these punk taggers know that we’re not going to accept tagging in our neighborhood anymore.